The story of the Moses clan that gathers, as it always has, on the first Sunday in June, for an annual reunion at a sprawling hundred-acre farm in Arkansas. And every year, Samuel Lake, a vibrant and committed young preacher, brings his beloved wife, Willadee Moses, and their three children back for the festivities. In the midst of it all, Samuel and Willadee’s outspoken eleven-year old daughter Swan, is a bright light. Her high spirits and fearlessness have alternately seduced and bedeviled three generations of the family. But just as the reunion is getting under way, tragedy strikes, jolting the family to their core and setting the stage for a summer of crisis and profound change. As we follow the family through their own difficulties, Swan will make it her mission to protect Blade Ballenger, a traumatized eight-year old neighbor, unaware of the peril facing her and those she loves.
I just love a good Southern novel and The Homecoming of Samuel Lake certainly qualifies as one. It’s set in the 1950s, a simpler time. I really liked how the author created the slow, heavy atmosphere of life in the South. The characters are fabulous – they are standard characters that are in a lot of Southern novels but they have enough depth not to be caricatures. I especially like Calla, tough as nails matriarch and her son Toy, who is the strong, silent type. I had a crush on him by the end of the book. Swan is a fun character too. Even though it’s been quite a while since I last read To Kill a Mockingbird but I can see why she is getting compared to Scout in many reviews.
Another thing I love about a good Southern novel is the idioms that people use and also the unique Southern names. This book was full of both. Some of the names: Toy, Swan, Noble, Blade, Willadee, Early. Somehow having characters with these names just added to the charming yet strong Southern vibe in this novel.
My favorite quote from the book is from Swan:*
“…there’s always a faction – that’s a bunch of people that get together and drink coffee at somebody’s house after church, when the message is too strong and they got their toes stepped on – anyway there’s always a faction that’s trying to get rid of the preacher for one reason or another.”
As someone who’s served in leadership positions at church in the past, I think her definition of faction is both hilarious and spot-on.
This novel isn’t all charm though. Bad things happen to good people and animals. (You may be bothered by a couple of scenes if you are especially sensitive to violence against children or animals.) Nothing is gratuitous though and everything that happens is necessary for the characters to grow. The story is captivating from beginning to end.
I highly recommend The Homecoming of Samuel Lake.
*This quote is taken from the advance reader’s edition. The final copy may differ.
I’ve been fascinated with Marilu Henner and her extraordinary memory ever since I saw her discussing it on a talk show several years ago. She can remember exactly what happened to her on any given date going all the way back to her early childhood. Since then, her special ability has been studied and given a name – Highly Superior Autobiographical Memory or HSAM. Only a handful of people have been found who have this ability.
I was expecting that the self-help aspect of this book would focus on how to improve one’s memory going forward. My memory is terrible and getting worse so I was hoping for some tips to fix that. However, this book focuses more on retrieving past memories and building a personal timeline. There were quite a few exercises that involved starting with an initial memory and unlocking more from there. This technique did not work for me because sometimes I didn’t even have the initial memory required – maybe I’m just too far gone. I know there are people who have had success using Marilu’s techniques but I am not one of them.
Marilu’s book is not just a self-help book on memory. She includes quite a bit of biographical information and personal examples, which I appreciated. I liked learning how HSAM has affected her life and her relationships through the years.
I listened to the audio version of this book which is narrated by Marilu herself. She does a fantastic job, of course. I think she’s one of the most cheerful people in show business and that definitely comes across in her narration of this book. Included with this audio book is a 45 page PDF file that has all the exercises and quizzes, which is good because there are a lot of them. It would be a real pain to have to stop the audio book and take notes but with the PDF that’s unnecessary.
Even though this book didn’t improve my memory, I still enjoyed listening to it. I think that her program could benefit others, it just wasn’t right for me.
Cash and Little Miss’s birthdays are only one day apart. Luckily, Cash actually wanted to have a joint party with Little Miss. We had a Dora vs Star Wars party.
I made Cash’s cake using the Wilton Darth Vader pan. Beware of the black icing – everyone who ate this cake had purple teeth and lips!
I made Little Miss’s cake using the 2010 Wilton Dora pan. I don’t know if it’s discontinued or what but it was out of stock everywhere, even on Wilton’s website. Fortunately, I found a pan on eBay for a good price.
Jana Bibi moves with her chatty parrot, Mr. Ganguly and her loyal housekeeper, Mary, to Hamara Nagar, where local merchants are philosophers, the chief of police is a tyrant, and a bagpipe-playing Gurkha keeps the wild monkeys at bay. When word gets out that the town is in danger of being drowned by a government dam, Jana is enlisted to help put it on the map. Hoping to attract tourists with promises of good things to come, she stacks her deck of cards, readies her fine-feathered assistant—and Jana Bibi’s Excellent Fortunes is born.
This was a charming book with an eclectic cast of loveable characters. It reminded me of a Fannie Flagg novel, only set in a small (fictional) town in India instead of a small town in the southern United States. The people of Hamara Nagar are each quirky in their own way. They are just plain nice and want to help other residents of the town. When the town is threatened, they band together without question to help save it. There is a bad-guy and some conflict but nothing too distressing. This novel is definitely a feel good book to read when you need a pick-me-up.
In the beginning of the book, there is an author’s note that explains some general things about 1960s India. I appreciated this since I knew almost nothing about what India was like during that time period. There is also a very helpful glossary in the back of the book. Finally, there is an etcetera section which is like the extras on a DVD movie, only for a book. What a great idea! I loved learning even more about the author and India in this section. Betsy includes a list of Indian movies that were popular in the time period – look for me to feature them as Page to Screen selections on this blog in the near future.
Jana Bibi’s Excellent Fortunes is the first book of a planned series. I’m really looking forward to reading the next installment.
The song My Shoes Are Japanese is mentioned several times in the book. It’s fun and catchy so I thought I’d feature it here if you’d like to listen to it:
Meet Logan Pyle, a lapsed grad student and stay-at-home dad who’s holding it together by a thread. His father, Gus, has died; his wife, Julie, has grown distant; his four-year-old son has gone back to drinking from a bottle. When he finds Julie kissing another man on a pile of coats at a party, the thread snaps. Logan packs a bag, buckles his son into his car seat, and heads north with a 1930s Louisville Slugger in the back of his truck, a maxed-out credit card in his wallet, and revenge in his heart.
After some bad decisions and worse luck, he lands at his father’s old A-frame cabin, where his father’s young widow, Bennie, now lives. She has every reason to turn Logan away, but when she doesn’t, she opens the door to unexpected redemption—for both of them.
A deftly plotted exploration of marriage, family, and the road from child to parent, Brand New Human Being is a page-turning debut that overflows with heart and grace.
I think that Brand New Human Being was a well-written book with well-drawn characters that had depth. However, all of the characters, especially Julie and Logan, were so deeply flawed that I didn’t like any of them and spent most of the book wanted to reach in and shake them. I think it’s speaks well of the author when she can cause such a strong reaction in a reader. But when I read a book with those kinds of characters, there needs to be at least one likeable character to balance things out.
I also thought that some things wrapped up a little too neatly in the end, while other things that I was wondering about through the whole book never did. For instance, why was Julie losing weight and not eating – was she sick, anorexic, or what?
This book wasn’t my cup of tea necessarily. However, there are plenty of glowing reviews for it out in the blogosphere so clearly it does have appeal to some.
In Operation Family Secrets, Frank Calabrese, Jr., tells the story of how he was driven at age thirty-nine to the painful and life-threatening decision to work with the FBI to put his father away for good. It is the dramatic tale of how, for six months – unmonitored and unprotected – he wore a wire in the prison where both he and his father were serving time, as his father revealed the details of decades’ worth of crimes. While the FBI had solved only eight mob murders in a hundred years, Frank’s work solved forty murders and sent two Outfit bosses and twelve of its highest-ranking members to prison. It was the largest organized-crime case in the history of Chicago and one of the largest in US history.
Mafia stories like The Godfather and The Sopranos have always intrigued me. It was interesting to read a real-life Mafia story and see how the “movie Mafia” differs from it. I have to say that there is not much difference at all. Frank Calabrese, Jr. is a brave man to not only refuse to enter the witness protection program but then to also co-author a tell-all book about growing up with a father in the Chicago Mafia, which is known as the Outfit.
I realize that the names of the people were out of the authors’ control since this was a true story, but so many of the people in this book have the same or similar names that at times it was hard for me to keep straight who was who, even with the “Cast of Characters” list that is provided at the front of the book. I did think that the authors did a good job of explaining Outfit slang terms and traditions and customs. It really is a whole other culture. And after hearing the term RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act) a million times while watching The Sopranos, I think I finally have a fairly good grasp on what it means thanks to this book.
This was a fascinating first-hand look into the Outfit and particularly the author’s father, Frank Calabrese, Sr. who was so terrifying even by the Outfit’s standards that he caused his own brother and son to cooperate fully with the FBI to put him away. Fans of Mafia movies like The Godfather and Casino will especially enjoy this book.
Callie lost her parents when the Spore Wars wiped out everyone between the ages of twenty and sixty. She and her little brother, Tyler, go on the run, living as squatters with their friend Michael and fighting off renegades who would kill them for a cookie. Callie’s only hope is Prime Destinations, a disturbing place in Beverly Hills run by a mysterious figure known as the Old Man.
He hires teens to rent their bodies to Enders–seniors who want to be young again. Callie, desperate for the money that will keep her, Tyler, and Michael alive, agrees to be a donor. But the neurochip they place in Callie’s head malfunctions and she wakes up in the life of her renter, living in her mansion, driving her cars, and going out with a senator’s grandson. It feels almost like a fairy tale, until Callie discovers that her renter intends to do more than party–and that Prime Destinations’ plans are more evil than Callie could ever have imagined. . . .
Teen dystopia novels are everywhere these days and they start to run together after a while. I think that Starters was original enough to stand out in the crowd. Callie was a strong, smart, likeable heroine. She is, of course, the center of a love triangle. I really didn’t feel like there was much chemistry with either boy – Michael or Blake. And I think I can say without giving anything away that a certain point Callie remaining interested in Blake got pretty creepy. Luckily, the romance wasn’t a huge part of the book.
The central plot involving Callie trying to figure out what Prime Destinations was up to kept me guessing and took several unexpected turns. The ending was haunting and left me eagerly anticipating the next book in the series.
There are two e-book prequels for this series, Portrait of a Starter and Portrait of a Marshal, that I’m assuming add some more details to the world-building. These books are $1.99 each and the first is only 15 pages long and the second is only 30 pages long. I find it ridiculous to have to pay four dollars for 45 pages of content.
Even though the e-book prequel situation irritates me and I probably won’t buy them (and if I do, I’ll be grumbly about it), I’m really looking forward to the sequel, Enders, which is scheduled to be released in December.
L.A. is no place for widows. This is what forty-four-year-old Hannah Bernal quickly discovers after the tragic death of her handsome and loving husband, John. Misery and red-rimmed eyes are little tolerated in the land of the beautiful. But life stumbles on: Hannah’s sweet three-year-old daughter, Ellie, needs to be dropped off at her overpriced preschool, while Hannah herself must get back to work in order to pay the bills on “Casa Sugar,” the charming Spanish-styled bungalow they call home.
Fortunately, Hannah has her “Grief Team” for emotional support: earth mother and fanatical animal lover Chloe, who finds a potential blog post in every moment; aspiring actress Aimee, who has her cosmetic surgeon on speed dial; and Jay, Hannah’s TV producing partner, who has a penchant for Mr. Wrong. But after a series of mishaps and bizarre occurrences, one of which finds Hannah in a posh Santa Monica jail cell, her friends start to fear for her sanity. To make matters worse, John left their financial affairs in a disastrous state. And when Hannah is dramatically fired from her latest producing gig, she finds herself in danger of losing her house, her daughter, and her mind.
One night, standing in her backyard under a majestic avocado tree, in the throes of grief, Hannah breaks down and asks, “Why?” The answer that comes back— Why not?—begins an astounding journey of discovery and transformation that leads Hannah to her own truly extraordinary life after death.
In The After Wife, Gigi Levangie Grazer has done what I would have thought impossible and made Hannah’s journey after becoming a widow light-hearted and funny. And it’s not in a zany, slapstick way, which I would not have liked. This book has smart humor and a Sex and the City type vibe. I loved the characters in her “Grief Team”, especially Jay – he was hilarious.
I don’t want to give too much away but I will say that after her husband is killed, Hannah discovers she has a unique talent. This talent made the book take an entirely different direction than I thought it would but I think it was what helped keep the story from becoming dark and depressing. I was pleasantly surprised with the unexpected twist the plot took. This was definitely not your typical chick-lit novel.
I think The After Wife is well-written, funny and would be a great summer read.
Last Friday, I reviewed Pamela Ribon’s You Take It From Here. In the acknowledgements Ribon writes that as part of her research for the book, she watched and “pretty much blew out a tear duct over the moving documentary How To Die In Oregon.” When I Googled the documentary and discovered that it won the 2011 Grand Jury Prize for Documentaries at the Sundance Film Festival, I decided this was a movie I needed to watch.
The subject of How To Die In Oregon is Oregon’s Death With Dignity Act, which was passed in 1994 and upheld by the United States Supreme Court in 2006. Oregon was the first state to pass this kind of law. The film opens with a crotchety cancer patient named Roger drinking his lethal dose of Seconal and laying down to await his death.
After that we meet Cody Curtis, a woman in her fifties with terminal liver cancer. When she first appears on camera, she looks healthy and happy. The film follows her decline and how she makes her decision about when it’s time for her to take her life. The filmmaker made a good decision in choosing Cody – she is smart, sensitive, articulate and lovable. I have a HUGE fear of death – my living will basically says keep me alive at all costs. But listening to Cody speak about what dying with dignity means and seeing how she was using her time before her death actually made me understand why someone with a terminal illness would want to choose their date of death.
This film also follows a woman from the state of Washington whose husband died of cancer. At the time he was dying, Washington did not have a Death With Dignity Act. Even though he wanted to take his life before his suffering got too bad, he was not able to. I think hearing about how things were for this man at the end will be eye-opening for a lot of people who do not realize how bad things can get at the end. It’s more than just pain. For instance, this man could not ever close his eyes because his brain tumor was pushing his eyeballs out.
Before he died, he asked his wife to please help make it so that other terminally ill people in Washington would not have to suffer as he did. The film follows his wife’s journey working trying to get a Death With Dignity bill passed in Washington.
I’m really glad I decided to watch this film. I learned so much about terminal illness and how to truly die with dignity. I definitely came away with a new perspective on death. I highly recommend How To Die In Oregon.
The Homecoming of Samuel Lake by Jenny Wingfield
